Contemporary and Historical Photographers

Task 1a:

Contemporary photographers:

Astrid sterner is a photographer that has done many magazine shoots for Dazed & Confused Korea. Sterner's recent doll inspired fashion shoot "The Doll House" is what intrigued me to look further into her work as a photographer. I found this project fit well with the theme that I am hoping to include into my work this project, mannequin. The models have been portrayed as if to replicate life sized dolls, this eccentric shoot is some what inspiring to contemporary photographers. Sterner has used blank walls and rarely used props, I believe this is to make the viewer purely focus on the model as a whole. 

                                         

    

Jesus De La Cruz is a Mexican photographer that focuses on portraiture and fashion photography. His project "Mannequin Affair" is quite a theatrical series, which is shown as a story using models portrayed as living mannequins. This shoot is studio based, using barely any props that I believe is to ensure there are no distractions from the models or story being told. I find his photographs to be daring, dramatic and intriguing, something a contemporary photographer needs to grasp the attention of the intended audience. 

Historical photographers:

Irving Penn is an influential and iconic American photographer focusing on portraiture, still life and fashion photography. His first photograph was of a still life, consisting of a big brown leather bag, beige scarf and gloves, lemons, oranges, and a huge topaz. It was published as the Vogue cover for the issue of October 1, 1943, and launched Penn on his photographic career. Penn continued to photograph successfully for Vogue. His photographs always seem to have a clean, iconic finish.

 Edward Steichen was an american fashion and portrait photographer. For his time his photographs were bold, unconventional and ahead of his time. I've noticed that Steichen used shadow in some of his work, I think this was to give his images depth and I trust this contributes to the eccentricity of his work. Through using shadow as a technique it gives the images a dramatic finish.

Evaluate:
Through looking at both historical and contemporary photographers, keeping the initial theme in mind, I have found that the historical have a way of using natural light to their advantage; to create shadows in a very theatrical way. Whereas contemporary photographers use modern techniques to form their outcome through artificial lighting or post editing.